I really don't know how to give this a star rating. It was an interesting read, but if anything it made me appreciate Poe's horror writing more. There were a few stories in here I genuinely enjoyed ("MS In a bottle" and "A tale of the ragged mountains" come to mind) and there were a few more that I found interesting if not actually enjoyable, but far more that I found boring or confusing or both. There were even a couple I just skipped by after reading 5-10 pages or so.

The commentary added some interesting context in places but also expected more pre-knowledge than I have so it wasn't as useful as I'd hoped.